An Intelligence Officer who sometimes hangs out in Key West forwarded me an Intelligence Report written by someone else I know, on Key West’s finest’s treatment of a World War II veteran I also know, backing up my comments in yesterday’s Spiritual Alchemy – USA, Florida Keys & Key West, mostly post comparing the city mayor, city commissioners, police, a county commissioner and lots of citizens to the Sarasota cop who arrested and jailed a homeless man for charging his cell phone on an electrical outlet in a public park:

Subject: Sat. Nov. 10 2:30-4:00am incident on Reynolds St @Casa Marina Court w/ 5 officers and no record of it

greetings to one and all, even those who are getting a “bcc” copy of this message.

On Saturday morning, November 10, 2012, I was parked alongside the Casa Marina hotel when I was awaken by a sound I’m familiar with — that of glass being tapped on. It was loud enough to wake me; this was approx 2:31 am.it turned out it a cop who was tapping on the glass of the van parked immediately in back of me, a van owned by a Michaelangelo Pelusi(?). Michaelangelo is a 91 year old man and a veteran of WWII.

I sat in the front seat of my vehicle and I OBSERVED A COP BREAK INTO MICHAELANGELO’s VAN, opening the driver’s door. when I saw that occur, I opened my driver door, stuck my head out, looking backward, and asked the cop, “Why are you breaking into that man’s vehicle?” The cop’s name is David Hall.

This situation stretched out over the next 90 minutes, ending at approx 4:04am. During this time I volunteered to try to awake Michaelangelo, but was not successful; I was also asked by the lead cop, David Hall to address mr. Pelusi ( because at that time he was sitting up in the rear section of his van). I do NOT for one minute believe the explaination of the cops as to why they broke into the vehicle.

But here’s what perhaps even more disturbing to me and maybe to those of you in the media as well — there’s no record of any of the cops (maybe as many as 5) being there that night. NO REPORT AT ALL !!!! How do I know? I went to the Records dept this morning and asked for the report.All I was given was a report about the ambulance that was called to the scene.I later called the Records dept and asked for more info, only to be told that’s all there is.

Despite the “official” line of concern for the man’s safety, I claim the reason the cops were there to begin with, and the reason they broke into his van, was to tell him he couldn’t park there (alongside the Casa Marina) anymore. So, to all of you on the city commission, it has come to this.Your passage of the “lodging” law has now empowered the cops to break into people’s homes/vehicles.You should feel pretty proud of yourselves for passing such a ridiculous ordinance.and the chief should be proud of his personnel for reaching so low as to become criminals themselves.

The commissioners might remember Michaelangelo, who spoke out at the meeting when the stupid, and UNCONSTITUTIONAL, law was passed.There were congratulations all around to him for his previous military service. And several days later, he was the subject of a front page story in the Citizen re the ‘lodging’ issue. And, yet now, it’s come to this. The cops breaking into his vehicle/home. So what’s done is done and can’t be undone. But why is there no record of any of the cops being there? and why did it take 5 cops, on a late Friday night/early Saturday morning, to roust the man? Wasn’t there perhaps a more pressing need for those officers to be down in the 200 block of Duval St. to break up any possible, and highly likely, fights that might occur at 2:30-4:00 in the morning?

It’s time for someone to step forward and demand answers from the KWPD as to why there isn’t a report on this situation, who the cops were, and why they broke into the man’s vehicle/home? It will be interesting to see what our local media do with this story. I will be doing all that I can in the near future to bring this situation to the attention of media and government people outside of the Keys. The world needs to know what is happening here. And it’s not pretty.In fact, it’s gotten downright criminal.

Mr. Rodd

[I know him as Shadaroba, his email is addressed to various journalists, the city officials and the chief of police]

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I was alerted to this uplifting One Human Family situation in dreams before dawn this morning, in which I was told by Key West’s Mayor Craig Cates and others to get involved.

As fate had it, Sandy Downs had asked me just last night about this very city ordinance, and I had told her about Michelangelo, a living treasure, who is too old now to go anywhere else, being made a criminal by Mayor Cates and the City Commission simply because Michelangelo lives in his van and has done so for years in Key West.

Not only Michelangelo was made a criminal, I told Sandy, but all people living in their vehicles in Key West were made criminals by Mayor Cates and the City Commission. That includes women with children and other people who lost their home and have no place to live but in a vehicle.

The cowboy cops knew it was Michelangelo’s van parked in front of a 5-star hotel. They know him, and that he is almost deaf. Welcome to the city of One Human Family Not. Welcome to a Germany the likes of Michelangelo risked his life to defeat.

A theme that can be seen in the soul drawing I was moved by the Holy Spirit to produce and give to Erika Biddle for her Hidden In Plain View homeless art, poetry and music exhibition, which begins tomorrow evening at 6 p.m. at Studios of Key West, on the lower end of White Street.

After getting that off my chest, I received an email from Ginny of Jupiter Beach, who has come through Key West several times on cruise ships headed south.

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Dear Sloan,

After reading your article on Homelessness in Key West, it is apparent that it is becoming very unpleasant to live in KW. KW attracted artists, free spirits, creative people, but now it appears to have become very rigid and uncaring. The local government sees it’s priority as protecting the tourism industry, which is the only industry, keeping KW. Pleasant and clean. It is unfortunate that navy island couldn’t have been set up as a homeless island retreat for the homeless with livable tropical thatched huts, bathroom, shower facilities, grow vegetable gardens, have access to psychological help to help the homeless get back to productive lives again. It’s almost impossible for the homeless to get out of the situation with guidance and help on how to get a job and what jobs are available, access to education and training. the homeless situation can’t be solved KW interview the homeless, find out the original cause, mental, economic, depression, drugs, tragedy. Many of them are emotionally broken people so difficult for them to help each other, but they can understand each other. Key West Homeless Situation is a microcosm of the homeless situation everywhere, but it might be possible to help and solve the problem in Key West as it is smaller in numbers than the big cities. You have tried to help but who is listening?

The saddest thing you mentioned was that the ocean is so polluted, that the ocean water which normally heals, causes additional infection. The access for the homeless to clean ocean water doesn’t exist. I would imagine this polluted ocean water is also affecting the fish and the rather brown looking coral reef that I explored off shore.

You have written on the condition of the homeless in Key West for years. You have talked with many of the people and said you had experienced the situation. Do you have some solutions? Obviously the homeless person has to want to change, so how do you motivate someone who has become “hopeless”?

Virginia

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After Key West surgeon Michael Klitenick, M.D. carved three awful MRSA abscesses out of my groin and butt in June 2003, he told me I could do anything I wanted to do, but go in the ocean. Keys divers are all too familiar with getting cut on coral and ending up with MRSA infections.

MRSA = Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus. Native to the sub-tropics and tropics, a killer if not treated. A very difficult killer to kill because it mutates and resists antibiotics. The terror of all terrors for homeless people. Key West physicians have told me MRSA is pandemic in Keys mainstream communities. Not something you ever hear from the Florida Keys Tourist Development Counsel and the various Keys Chambers of Commerce.

Years ago, I told the Key West City Government to use Truman Waterfront as a homeless camp.

As for treating homeless people, it’s one thing to treat them for MRSA and other medical problems. It’s another thing altogether to treat them for the rips and tears in their psyches. I have extensive training and experience in soul healing, as a patient and as a healer. I have lived among street people, the chronic – long-term – homeless. I have known them in ways they cannot otherwise be known by mainstream people.

I have told the Key West City Commission and Mayor (several generations) many times that, in the main, street people cannot be changed by mainstream interventions, that only God can change them. I have told the same authorities (several generations) many times that street people, in the main, gave up on mainstream living, and living on the street is where they are most comfortable and they really do not want to return to mainstream living.

I have told the authorities (several generations) many times that what they should do is provide pubic showers and toilet facilities for street people, and, for God’s sake, let them sleep.

I have told authorities (several generations) to focus on saving new homeless people from becoming street people. Try to get the new homeless back into housing, back to work, back to what is comfortable for them before they mutate into street people.

This message has not been well received, even though it is a message from the only real expert in the field in the Keys. An expert who has treated psychiatrists, psychologists, clinical social workers, psychological counselors, addiction counselors, spiritual healers, gurus, etc. for their own soul trauma. An expert who has been treated for years by angels for his own soul trauma.

Right, expert is relative. Expert is, right, someone from out of town, who claims to have all the answers. Someone like Robert Marbut, who is proving not to have all the answers, as I told the authorities in Key West from the get-go. But they didn’t want to hear what I told them. They wanted to hear what someone who said what they wanted to hear told to them.

However, anyone who has really dealt with street people without living among them, someone like Father Steven Braddock of Florida Keys Outreach Coalition, or Erika Biddle for another example, knows there is something about street people that truly sets them apart from mainstream people, and that something makes it very difficult to turn street people back into mainstream people.

It is Erika and Steve’s hope, and my hope, that Hidden In Plain View will help mainstream people see street people, and all homeless people, as human beings who have their own unique characteristics and stories which might be all too familiar to mainstream people but with different worldly expressions. Who among us can say we do not have our own good, bad, ugly and beautiful? Who among us cannot say there, but for the grace of God, go I?

I replied to John Horwitz: Didn’t know until today that you had been in Vietnam. I was spared that ordeal by spirit intervention, perhaps told another day.

Sancho Panza wrote to me:

I was spared too… given a 4-Y classification… mi no spik no ingliss… I think they thought I was too dumb to be a soldier! I suppose that’s some kind of divine intervention!

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I replied to Sancho: I wrote a few times of how I was saved from Vietnam, did you ever see it in any of my ravings?

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Sancho replied:

It doesn’t come to mind, no! Perhaps if you give me the gist of it… might refresh my memory!

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Having been primed by dreams, I replied:

Your Vietnam escape story, by the way, is hilarious. How many foreign languages, besides Anglais, hablas tu? I imagine with your scientific training, you could have been really valuable in designing various weapons, detection devices, guidance systems, radio transmitters, etc.

All I had that would have been useful to the military-industrial complex, then led by Pres. LBJ who had promised on national TV that he would never send American boys to die in a war in Asia, was my then pretty healthy, semi-strong body and some knowledge of rifles and shotguns from being an avid hunter of creatures who never did anything to justify my search-and-destroying them for sport mostly, although sometimes I ate the dove, quail and ducks I shot.

Whatever, I was unintentionally staying one jump ahead of the draft by being a college student, then by getting married the summer before my junior year in college, then by my wife having a baby in the summer before my last semester in law school. Seven weeks later, the boy died of crib death, it was decided. I was exposed to the draft because by then married men were draft eligible, but fathers were not. After about a month of tortuous wrestling with playing the draft lottery, or enlisting in the Marine Corps and heading to the front lines, or perhaps landing in the JAG Corps as a military lawyer, I decided to go to my Draft Board in Birmingham and apply for a student deferment, which carried with it automatic induction upon graduation.

About a week after I did that, my wife learned she was pregnant. So, figuring it was a waste of time, I drove back to Birmingham from Tuscaloosa and told my tale of woe to the same woman who had helped me apply for the student deferment. She seemed sympathetic, but said the student deferment was irrevocable once granted. She opened a filing cabinet drawer and pulled out my file to the get form I had signed, saying just what she had told me. She looked at something in the file, said, “There’s been some mistake.” I asked, “What mistake?” She said, “You applied for a student deferment on the wrong form, the deferment is invalid and you will have to apply again.” I laughed, said, “No thanks, I’ll keep my father deferment and walked out of the Draft Board office. I knew it was a divine intervention, there was no doubt.

The first divine intervention in my life, of which I was aware. Years passed before I saw other divine interventions that changed my life before that one in time.

Moving sideways …

In the summer of 2004, I started attending a Methodist Church Sunday school class in North Georgia, where I was “stationed” for the hot months, which would have been unbearable for a homeless person in Key West, where I otherwise usually was “stationed” during that time in my bizarre life.

The first time I attended that Sunday school class, the American-flag-waving teacher and several patriotic class members started beating up on Muslims, saying they all deserved to die, etc. Shortly, I exploded, explained Jesus to them. Then, I said what’s the big deal? God told Abraham in Genesis that Ishmael’s seed would become a great nation and would cause Isaac’s seat trouble. Islam views it as a mandate from God to cause Israel and Christendom heaps of trouble. God prophesied it, including 911, according to Genesis.

After that class, I told the minister I didn’t think I could come back to his church, I just wasn’t up to that kind of rough stuff. But he and the Sunday school teacher asked me to come back.

The next Sunday, I told the sill flag-waving class the story about how God saved me from Vietnam. You would have heard a pin drop until someone said, “He wasn’t supposed to go.” That’s all they seemed to get from all that I had said to them – just that I was not supposed to go to Vietnam.

The next Saturday night, I was told in my sleep to be quiet in the next day’s Sunday school class, so I was quiet, said nothing, which was noticed. After that class, one of the women remained with me in the classroom. She said what I had said about what God had told Abraham about Ishmael was really interesting. No one, though, seemed to get it that Jesus would have simply told them to resist not one who does evil, turn the other cheek, take the beam out of their own eye, etc.

About two weeks after 911, it came into my thoughts out of the blue that what America needed to do, I wrote this a few times before, was get out of the Middle East altogether and cut Israel loose to work or fight it out with Islam.

I wish you lived somewhere else, peacenik that you are, and were not suffering under the recent 911 karma visited on NY and surrounding by G.W. Bush, Barack Obama and far too many more Americans thinking and behaving like the members and teacher of that Methodist Sunday school class.

I was living in that same community in 2001, when I was asked in my sleep, three nights before 911, “Will you make a prayer for a divine intervention for all of humanity?”, which I did upon immediately waking. I don’t think I ever told that to the Sunday school class. Or that one year later I was asked in my sleep to make the same prayer, which I did that time in a dream, and added to the prayer, “and let it begin in me!” Yoweeee!!!! I thought the angels had worked me over before that. Yoweeee!!!! until even now. Dodge that draft, I did not. Ciaosky

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Sancho replied:

I do remember now about your son and the pregnancy, etc…. you were right, I had forgotten the details! That Nam mess did a lot of damage to America’s psyche, I think we never got over it… being defeated for the first time like that… I think our military has been trying to makeup for it ever since… same shit is gonna happen with Afghanistan… bunch of dumb-ass cowboys… look at the spectacle of how the two highest ranking generals now are being exposed for the hounds they are… Marine code of ethics my ass! ===============================

I replied to Sancho:

Agreed, Vietnam devastated America’s psyche and our military and hawk politicians have been trying to make up for it ever since, with plenty of encouragement from Americans. Same shit already happened with Afghanistan. The CIA Director seems to have gotten seriously out-sleuthed by his paramour. As for another dumb-ass cowboy …

My brother, and a friend of his and mine in that north Georgia community, and other friends of ours dodged Vietnam by joining the Alabama Air National Guard, which is something rich white Alabama men were able to arrange for their draft-eligible sons. George W. Bush got into the Alabama Air National Guard unit in Montgomery via string-pulling from his father even though the Bushes lived in Texas.

My brother and his and my friend and other Alabama fellows we knew actually did their Air National Guard training and could have ended up in Vietnam if that war had continued. George W. Bush went A.W.O.L. from his Alabama National Guard Unit as part of his preparation to be President of the United States and order the American military to finish the liberate-Kuwait-war against Saddam Hussein, which his father was unable to finish because that have alienated the Saudis and a whole heap of other Islamic countries.

I cannot imagine how one Republican today, or ever, thought George W. Bush was fit to be President of the United States of America. I think that whenever I hear a Republican bash Barack Obama, whom I wish had stayed in Illinois.

Ciaosky

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While on the Republican theme, consider this on bigpinekey.com’s Coconut Telegraph yesterday, excerpt from a larger commentary by:

From the Right

Every now and then some bozo fires off a posting that is truly disgustingly stupid. Every now and then some poster reveals the depths of his/her evil, mean spirited bigoted heart. Yesterday was one of those days. The core and theme of the doofus posting was his belief that: “Christians say only Christians should be allowed to be President of the USA.” Our slack jaw pal obviously has major antipathy towards Christians. Who knows why, who cares. I wonder what proof of his claim that he is prepared to offer us. Aside from the supremely bigoted tone, the poster paints all Christians with the same excrement filled brush. Perhaps the poster should do a little research into ecumenical outreach that goes on every day between Muslim and Christians. The poster evinced the same bigoted foolishness that fueled the angst against Romney for his LDS faith and the outrage that the Catholic, JFK, could aspire to our Presidency. How many remember that the bigots came out in force when Barry Goldwater was a presidential candidate. Did I mention that Goldwater was a Jew? The bigoted poster seems to bear great animus towards Christians. There is no doubt but there are Jews, Protestants, Baptists, diests, agnostics, atheists, and even polytheists who are of the belief that a Muslim would be a less than a stellar choice for the Presidency of the USA, not one of any of those groups have suggested that Muslims should be barred from the Presidency. Hence tagging Christians alone as being against a Muslim presidential candidate is in and of itself bigoted. I challenge yesterday’s poster to prove his claim that ““Christians say only Christians should be allowed to be President of the USA.” It is ironic and irritating that our anti Christian poster is displaying his own brand of bigotry against the American Judeo/Christian heritage. Our friend appears to be bigoted against any presidential candidate who is not an atheist. Will he/she deny that? Webster’s “Bigot: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially: one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.” ========================

I submitted this reply to the Coconut Telegraph:

TO FTR:

If, as you wrote previously, the GOP for the first time since 1872 now controls the legislative house in all 11 states of the old Confederacy, does that mean the Republican Party replaced the Democratic Party as the KKK’s favorite party?

Did you forget to mention that Barry Goldwater was in bed with and defended the John Birch Society and other forms of far-right extremism in America, and that is why he got beaten so badly in that presidential election?

I know lots of Republican Christians, and I don’t know one who would vote for a Catholic for President, or for a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Taoist, a Shintoist, a Wiccan, a New Agean, a Negro, an Asian, a Mexican-American.

I know lots of Christians who only want a Christian in the White House.

I know a less number of Christians who are bigger than that.

Is Christian and Muslim ecumenical outreach similar to proselytizing, missionary work, or do you mean we should all get along because there is only one God?

I am not an atheist and am bigoted against the Republican Party, the Tea Party, the Democratic Party and politicians.

I have seen how deeply prejudiced you are against President Obama. Not because he is black, or rather half black and half white. But because he is a Democrat. Like many Americans, you have become mired in political religion and secular concerns, even though Jesus said in the Gospels that the Kingdom of God is not of this world; you cannot worship God and mammon; take no thought for tomorrow, or for what you shall eat or drink or wear, for each day has enough trouble of its own; but put your faith in God and what you need for this world will be provided to you. Most of all, Jesus said, not my will but God’s will be done.

To read your writings, FTR, to hear on TV the propaganda of the Republican Party, the Tea Party, and the Democratic Party, to hear President Obama, to listen to church people, I am left wondering if 99 percent of Americans are atheists and/or have made God in their own image.

Sloan Bashinsky

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Comic relief forward from a Marathon duplicate bridge amiga:

Mrs. Brown’s dog is very old and unwell. The kids are trying to figure out a way to tell her that its time to put the dog down.